


I'd end my days with you in a hail of bullets

by we_are_the_same



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 05:39:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_are_the_same/pseuds/we_are_the_same
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And as we're touching hands, and as we're falling down<br/>I'll see your eyes, and in this pool of blood<br/>I'll meet your eyes, I mean this, forever</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd end my days with you in a hail of bullets

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song "Demolition Lovers" by My Chemical Romance. Prompted by hiddencliches on tumblr.

"Liam, what are you _doing_  here" Zayn asks, begs, and Liam just looks at him, eyes calm in a way Zayn hasn't seen them for years. At least not when he'd looked at him.  _"I'm proving myself to you"_  Liam answers, and Zayn chokes on bits of a heart he didn't think was able to shatter in tinier pieces than it already had years ago.  
  
 _*  
  
Zayn and Liam were never **just**  Zayn and Liam. Sometimes it feels like the whole world was entitled to an opinion about them. At fourteen years old Zayn has already grown accustomed to the stares, the disapproval in peoples eyes at his jackets, his cigarettes, his devil-may-care attitude. At the way he will wrap an arm around Liam and meet those stares, the only thing that keeps him from losing it at the sight of their pity for Liam the others fingertips digging into his hip.  
  
 **Poor Liam** , people think. Poor Liam and poor parents for losing their son to  **Zayn Malik**. _  
  
*  
  
Poor Zayn Malik, who never got Liam Payne in the end.  
  
And yet here he stands, calm and steady and fucking  _beautiful_  as always, and Zayn lies on a bed that he swears he can feel  _move_  underneath him, probably crawling with lice. Thin, scarred, eyes bloodshot from too many nights roaming the streets in search of  _more_. Of trying to escape what he knows he can't shake, because Liam is in his bloodstream no matter how potent the drug he's on.   
  
And yet... Liam looks at him as though he's perfect, the way Zayn imagined he would when he was high as could be, smiling and laughing and crying and touching himself to the memory of Liams smile, Liams hands.  
  
*  
  
 _ **"I love you"** Zayn says, lets the words trip off his tongue knowing that they'll be said back to him, knowing that Liam will have that surprised look on his face, like he can't ever truly believe that this is real. That they're  **ZaynandLiam**  and they're moving into their own apartment after the summer. That they'll go to college and start a life, far away from people who sneer when they so much as hold hands. Sometimes Zayn can't believe it either, feels like pinching himself because it's too good to be true. It's why he says it, he thinks. His words a claim on Liams skin that no one can see, that no one can erase._  
  
*  
  
"You left me" Zayn croaks, licking chapped lips, fingers shaking as he reaches for a cigarette, his lighter, like he wouldn't be reaching for a needle if Liam wasn't looking at him like that. He's stupid but not desperate, not just yet, though it'll creep up on him as it always does, consume him until the need for drugs and the need for Liam melt into one craving, a hunger he can never get rid of.  
  
 _"I came back"_ Liam says, like it's that easy, and Zayn shakes his head, fumbles with the lighter until Liam cups his hands and helps him, the touch of his hands warm, burning him, setting him on fire and oh, it  _hurts_.  
  
"You've said that before."  
  
 _"This time I mean it."_  
  
*  
  
 _ **"This is Danielle."**_  
  
 _(Zayn it isn't like that. Zayn come on. Zayn.)_  
  
  
*  
  
It isn't like that, but it  _is_. It's how it ends. ZaynandLiam are Zayn and Liam. There's Liam and Danielle and Zayn and loneliness. Zayn and anger. Zayn and drugs.   
  
Zayn and  _this is all my fault._  
Zayn and  _maybe I should apologize._  
Zayn and  _he's better off with her._  
  
Zayn and ten years of a drug addiction that still can't hold a candle to his addiction to Liam Payne. Married, father-of-two Liam Payne, with crisp suits and a dog and walks in the park on Sundays. Liam Payne with eyes that look older, that look tired and sad the way they did when Zayn chose drugs, when Zayn chose  _LiamandDanielle_ , when he gave up despite whispered promises at night.   
  
Liam Payne who is here when he has no right to be. When he was the one to tell Zayn that  _this was it_ , daysweeksmonthsyears ago.  _This has to stop_ , and Zayn had agreed but he didn't tell him that there was no drug on earth strong enough to take this away. To make him forget.  
  
*  
 _ **"Zayn?"** His voice sounds so surprised and Zayn wants to shout at him for it, for Liam Payne's stupid belief that he could ever truly be gone from his life. For ever thinking that he could be different, because he sees the disappointment when their eyes meet and Zayns are blown from whatever drug he managed to get his hands on that night.  **"Zayn"** Liam repeats, and Zayn shakes his head, mumbles "I shouldn't have come here."  
  
Liam agrees in a soft tone, illuminated by the soft glow coming from the hallway, and Zayn can hear the TV, can hear her crystal laugh. Before Liam can ask why, before he asks questions Zayn can't answer, the boy wipes his nose with his hand, the cliche junkie movement not lost on Liam who has the decency not to wince. Liam always was so fucking decent. "Congrats on your engagement Li."_  
  
  
 *****  
  
"It's too late Li" He says now, pushes himself up from the decaying mattress, eyes trying to get used to the relative dark of the room. It's a dump and he would be ashamed if his whole life hadn't lead up to it. If he wasn't marked for this right at birth. Zayn Malik. Eternal screw-up. Junkie. Forever in love with Liam Payne.  
  
 _"You once said that it was never too late. That you'd wait for me forever."_  
  
"Forever" Zayn agrees, but he doesn't look at Liam as he moves towards the mirror on unsteady feet.   
  
*  
  
 _ **"I loved you. Why was that never enough?"**  Liam stares at Zayn, cupping his face in his hands as he dabs at the cut on Zayns cheek with a soft pad that Zayn suspects comes from Danielles supply of toiletries. There's a strange pleasure in bleeding all over her things, over their picture-perfect life that he has no right to ruin but  **wants** to.   
  
"Because" Zayn starts, swallows when he sees the naked anguish in Liams eyes, the fingers curled around his chin making it impossible to look away. "No matter how big your heart is, you could never love me for the both of us."  
  
 **"I would have proved you wrong"** Liam says, kisses him, and it isn't until the sound of a newborn baby crying reaches his ears that Zayn pulls away._  
  
  
*  
  
"Forever" He repeats now, staring at his reflection, mind replacing it with a healthier version of himself. The one that might have deserved Liam once upon a time. "But you never chose me, Li." His fingers are curled into a fist, limbs shaking with that urge to shatter the last bit of hope he can see in those dulled brown eyes looking back at him from the mirror.   
  
 _"How could I?"_ Liam argues and Zayn nods. He's no match for Danielle, not now and not even then. Danielle with her easy charm, with her upbeat attitude, with the inner light that forced Zayn to see that he was night where she was day. He was dark, the gaping hole that always needed to take where she could give. She had made Liam smile, had made him sing in the shower and hum under his breath as he cooked, and she had made him reconnect with his parents, who had all but given up on him at his refusal to break up with Zayn.  _"Zee, how could I choose you if you never gave me the option?"_  
  
*  
 _"You could come with me" Zayn whispers it against his skin, lets his lips brush up the column of Liams throat, feels him swallow underneath his mouth. "We could run away. Start over. Just you and me, Li. Until the end. You and me, forever." Liams fingers tangle in his hair, pull him up a shade of too rough but Zayn leans into it, lets him move him until their mouths are bare inches apart. **"You are high"** Liam accuses and Zayn nods easily because yeah, he is. He's high on more than the heroin shot into his veins before meeting up with Liam in the motel room they haven't left since, high on the way their legs tangle and their sweat mingles, high on how things used to be, how they can be  **again**. _  
  
 ** _"This has got to stop, Zayn"_** _Liam whispers, brushes their mouths together in a kiss that sears in ways Zayn is sure shouldn't be possible. **"You have got to stop doing this to yourself. To us."**  Zayn nods again, agrees eagerly "Okay." _  
  
 _ **"Okay?"** Liam echoes and Zayn nods, grins, kisses him. "Yeah. For you? Anything. Always."_  
  
 _He lasts two days on the memory of that promise, until the text makes him run out of his apartment in search of something that'll make him forget._ Danielle is pregnant again. Zayn, I'm sorry.   
  
 _For you, anything. Always._  
  
*  
  
"They're coming for me" He says and he manages not to sound scared. Looks at Liam as though it'll make him reconsider. Turn tail and flee. Zayn wonders if he'd make him. "The cartel. I can't avoid them forever. If you've found me, so will they." He wonders if Liam knows, knows that he won't ask even if he doesn't. It's not that hard to figure out anyway. In fact, it's kind of  _expected_. The screenplay of Zayn Maliks life, starring some up and coming Hollywood celebrity.   
  
 _"We can run away"_ Liam says and Zayn chuckles, thinking they've come full circle at last. This time he's supposed to be the one to tell him no, though he has nothing to offer, no sense of decency left, just desperation and longing for him, he wasn't lying when he said  _forever_ , all those years ago.  _"We could do it, Zee."_  
  
*  
 _Liam comes back. Shows up in a rumpled suit, two-day-beard on his cheeks that Zayn remembers from nights of studying for their final exams. That haunted look that he sees in his own reflection whenever he chances a look in the mirror, taunts of how vain he is long gone from anyone's lips._  
  
 _Zayn asks "what are you doing here" and Liam smiles, like Zayn is supposed to know that he would never stay away. **"I came back"** He says like that clarifies everything, and it does. Zayn has halved the distance between them before he stops, eyes surprisingly sober as he looks up. "Where's Danielle?" He asks, and Liam is the one whose eyes skitter away now.  **"Hospital"** He says, and Zayn frowns, doesn't understand until he remembers the last time they did this. The last time they nearly ruined each other. Six and a half months ago. "Go" He says, and he doesn't even sound angry. "Go, Liam. Be with your wife and your kids."_  
  
 _ **"Zayn"** Zayn shakes his head, brushes his thumb over the bags underneath Liams eyes, stands on tiptoes to kiss his cheekbone. "It's where you should be, Li. It's where you belong." _  
  
 _He's halfway to oblivion before the door clicks shut._  
  
*  
  
Zayn doesn't know if they followed Liam in. He doesn't suppose it matters much. It was a matter of time, he knew that. The door opens and he looks up, but not at the men in the doorway. His eyes go to Liam as they always have, see through the years that they spent apart, back to the fifteen-year-old that declared his love for him. That gave him a ring Zayn keeps under his pillow, that told him  _no matter what_ and meant it. 

  
He doesn't acknowledge them. Or their guns. Walks towards Liam with single-minded determination, feels lighter than he's done in years when their fingers tangle. "Forever?" He asks, voice wavering until he looks into his eyes, sees him smile, his grasp just as firm and comforting as it was all those years ago. Safe.  _"Forever"_  


  
  


  
_And as we're touching hands, and as we're falling down_   
_I'll see your eyes, and in this pool of blood_   
_I'll meet your eyes, I mean this, forever_   



End file.
